Nikolova Dessislava, Rumley Sébastien, Calhoun David, Li Qi, Hendry Robert, Samadi Payman, Bergman Keren
Opt Express. 2015 Jan 26;23(2):1159-75. doi: 10.1364/OE.23.001159.
With the rapidly increasing aggregate bandwidth requirements of data centers there is a growing interest in the insertion of optically interconnected networks with high-radix transparent optical switch fabrics. Silicon photonics is a particularly promising and applicable technology due to its small footprint, CMOS compatibility, high bandwidth density, and the potential for nanosecond scale dynamic connectivity. In this paper we analyze the feasibility of building silicon photonic microring based switch fabrics for data center scale optical interconnection networks. We evaluate the scalability of a microring based switch fabric for WDM signals. Critical parameters including crosstalk, insertion loss and switching speed are analyzed, and their sensitivity with respect to device parameters is examined. We show that optimization of physical layer parameters can reduce crosstalk and increase switch fabric scalability. Our analysis indicates that with current state-of-the-art devices, a high radix 128 × 128 silicon photonic single chip switch fabric with tolerable power penalty is feasible. The applicability of silicon photonic microrings for data center switching is further supported via review of microring operations and control demonstrations. The challenges and opportunities for this technology platform are discussed.
随着数据中心对总带宽的需求迅速增长，人们对插入具有高基数透明光交换结构的光互连网络越来越感兴趣。硅光子学因其占地面积小、与CMOS兼容、高带宽密度以及具有纳秒级动态连接的潜力，是一项特别有前景且适用的技术。在本文中，我们分析了构建基于硅光子微环的数据中心规模光互连网络交换结构的可行性。我们评估了基于微环的WDM信号交换结构的可扩展性。分析了包括串扰、插入损耗和交换速度在内的关键参数，并研究了它们对器件参数的敏感度。我们表明，物理层参数的优化可以降低串扰并提高交换结构的可扩展性。我们的分析表明，使用当前的先进器件，具有可容忍功率代价的高基数128×128硅光子单芯片交换结构是可行的。通过对微环操作和控制演示的回顾，进一步支持了硅光子微环在数据中心交换中的适用性。讨论了该技术平台面临的挑战和机遇。
